Free Scorched Earth by Robert Muchamore Page B

moving away from Henderson as a third member of staff got dragged up from the wine cellar and dumped in the middle of the room, with the woman in the torn dress and the man who’d been shot in the foot.
    ‘If you kiss our boots, we might not set your bar on fire,’ a man shouted, but over in the corner a mechanic was already holding a lighter to the blackout curtains.
    Henderson tried to think of something he could do, but there were at least forty Germans in the bar. His OT uniform meant they might even turn on him, so his only option was to clear out and hope that nothing too awful happened before the men of the 108th finished their latest conquest and staggered back to their camouflaged tanks for an afternoon nap.
    *
    ‘Where were you?’ Luc shouted aggressively.
    The muscular sixteen-year-old booted a three-legged milking stool so hard that it spun out from beneath Paul’s arse. Paul went sideways, sending a miniature watercolour set and small sketchbook flying.
    ‘Eighteen bags of onions, forty sacks of potatoes I lugged,’ Luc said, making Paul flinch as he threw a punch, but pulled it a centimetre from Paul’s nose. ‘Dead sister’s no excuse to sit on your arse painting all day.’
    Sometimes Paul started to think Luc was changing, but then something like this would happen and he’d realise that he was the same bully he’d always been.
    ‘Is there any more to carry?’ Paul asked. ‘I’d have given you a hand if you’d asked.’
    Luc smiled nastily. ‘You’re so puny. If I hadn’t seen your dick with my own eyes, I’d swear that you were a girl.’
    Paul wanted to retaliate, but he was out by the lake on Morel’s farm and if Luc went psycho there’d be no way to stop him.
    ‘Her majesty sent me out to find you,’ Luc said, and Paul knew that this meant Jae. ‘Lunch is ready back at the house.’
    Luc loomed over Paul as he picked up his paints. When Luc snatched the pad, he saw that Paul had used the tiny brushes to paint the scene around the lake, except instead of the grave Paul had painted his sister standing amidst the reeds.
    ‘You might be a dick, but you’re a talented dick,’ Luc said, as he passed the pad back to Paul. ‘Looks exactly like her.’
    Paul had stayed on the farm since Rosie’s death and expected lunch in the Morels’ dining room. However, Marc and PT were there and since they stank of manure and hard graft, the Morels’ cook didn’t let them beyond a staff dining area.
    ‘Nobody starves around here, do they?’ Luc said, as he sat at the table and started ladling out a casserole filled with big chunks of lamb.
    Paul considered telling PT and Marc what had happened at the lake, but he liked to fight his own battles and tattling would make him feel like a wimp.
    ‘I found something out this morning,’ PT said. ‘You know Corentin? Not the tall one, the one with the big conk?’
    The three other boys around the table nodded. ‘Nice guy,’ Marc said. ‘I don’t know him well but he worked hard when he was down here on the farm.’
    ‘Corentin’s got a cousin, Gil,’ PT said. ‘He works as a janitor in an apartment building. Apparently he was moaning about these guys giving him trouble. Turns out, the Milice have been staying on the top floor.’
    Paul sounded surprised. ‘Milice are so scared of reprisals against their families, I thought they’d drive up from Paris or something.’
    ‘They do,’ PT said. ‘Corentin reckons they come and go. Sometimes there’s fifteen or twenty guys in the apartment, sometimes only a couple.’
    ‘Useful,’ Marc said. ‘Presumably the extra men come in when there’s going to be a big operation, so if we keep the place under watch we’ll know when stuff’s about to happen.’
    ‘What did Henderson say about this?’ Luc asked.
    PT shook his head. ‘I asked Corentin not to tell Jean or Henderson for a day or two.’
    Paul looked confused. ‘Why?’
    ‘Because Jean is so scared of reprisals he doesn’t want